Among releases scheduled nationwide:Carol Nahrwold estimates that only about 30 percent of the 50 authors taking part in Saturday’s Allen County Public Library Fall Author Fair had their books published in the traditional way.
Nahrwold, manager of the library’s Readers’ Services Department, says troubles in the publishing industry have combined with great advances in self-publishing and electronic publishing to give authors tools they did not have 20 years ago and the incentive to use them.
The Fall Author Fair, slated from noon to 4 p.m. at the downtown library, is a sequel-of-sorts to a wildly successful spring author fair.
Nahrwold says the Fall Author Fair is “a forum for getting authors out there.”
“It gives local authors the opportunity to meet other local authors, local readers to meet local authors, and local readers to meet other local readers,” she says.
Among the 50 scribes are people such as children’s author Helen Frost and romance novelist Shirley Jump, who have had their work published by major publishing houses.
And then there’s Karen Lenfestey, Nahrwold says, who sold more than 20,000 copies of one of her e-books with no help from a publishing house.
Twenty years ago, a self-published book tended to look pretty amateurish, Nahrwold says.
Nowadays, thanks to advances in computing and software, self-published books are cheaper to create and can look as professional as the sort produced by vast and venerable publishers.
“I mean, the books really look good,” Nahrwold says. “It is much easier than it used to be for people to get their work published if they want to do it themselves.”
Strategies for successful composition and distribution of one’s work will be discussed during the fair at panel discussions on writing for children, teens and adults and on “the nuts and bolts” of getting published, Nahrwold says.
